Andy / Tony
I just stepped into a position at my current company focusing in on cap planning/management. But being a new position here, I am getting my feet wet by addressing customer SLAs for availability and support.

As Tony said, there are a number of disparate groups doing their own thing in trying to get a grip on capacity mgmt. I plan on tapping each one as I try to consolidate / coordinate the efforts.

One of the first challenges though is to identify an adequate measurement system - both for capacity and availability.

And I agree with the strategy and planning approach rather than reactionary - which is how capacity is addressed now

You're right, proactive Capacity Mgmt is the way forward, as reactive capacity mgmt will happen as a matter of course without any process in place.

The key for my point of view one key element is getting valuable, & useful information from the business regarding their strategy and projects. It's ok to budget x% of the infrastructure budget for extra capacity, and this approach is often sufficient, however, it's viewed mainly at the resource level.

True capacity mgmt, again in my view, needs to address the business strategy over the 2-3 future years, look at virtualisation & 'going green.' Going green often gets mgmt backing as it generally also means financial savings.

While the ITIL view of Service Capacity Mgmt is analysing Service Breaches, I believe this should be deepened by investigation the expansion or reduction plans of the services.

I agree, the measurement system is crucial. This is my first role of this type, do you have any recommendations for basing these measurements on?

We've used SiteScope and SiteSeer for years for monitoring and alerting. Since it was already in-house and capturing data, this is what we're using to put together availability metrics. But now that we're taking a microscope to the data, I see there is alot of noise that brushes dangerously close to our SLAs.

We're a logistics/trucking company, and our customers get information and conduct business through our web applications. So availability is very important to them, and customers are starting to ask about our Uptime/ Availability numbers (not that they're bad - it's just becoming the "industry" thing to do). As I get this firmed up and under control, it will become part of the sales pitch to prospects.

Andy, for gaining the information from the business in my current situation is done via the SDLC process with Infrastructure SPOCs ensuring the correct information is included in the documentation for the component requirements. This is supported by quarterly meetings with directors to gain their current & planned situation for strategic projects.

I'm also in the process of creating a report from the SDLC information, which I will christen Forward Schedule of Requirements report (Hmmmmm sounds somewhat familiar! ) which will detail the upcoming projects against a timeline, showing the sign-off dates and planned implementation date on a time graph, with a breakdown of the component requirements for each project underneath. This supports proactive capacity management, but also facilitates the Infra Tech team in planning their hours & activities for implementing.